Deuteron-induced reactions generated by intense lasers for PET isotope production

We investigate the feasibility of using laser accelerated protons/deuterons for positron emission tomography (PET) isotope production by means of the nuclear reactions 11B(p, n)11C and 10B(d, n)11C. The second reaction has a positive Q-value and no energy threshold. One can, therefore, make use of the lower energy part of the laser-generated deuterons, which includes the majority of the accelerated deuterons. By assuming that the deuteron spectra are similar to the proton spectra, the 11C produced from the reaction 10B(d, n)11C is estimated to be 7.4×109 per laser-shot at the Titan laser at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Meanwhile a high-repetition table-top laser irradiation is estimated to generate 3.5×107 11C per shot from the same reaction. In terms of the 11C activity, it is about 2×104 Bq per shot. If this laser delivers kHz, the activity is integrated to 1 GBq after 3 min. The number is sufficient for the practical application in medical imaging for PET.